Moving my LabVIEW FPGA Project to a New Location Without Recompiling

Updated Nov 22, 2022

Reported In

Software

  • LabVIEW FPGA Module

Issue Details

I work on a team that develops with LabVIEW FPGA and we often share copies of a project amongst each other. I have noticed that when we move an FPGA project to a new location on a given development computer or to another development system, we are forced to recompile if we wish to run the FPGA VI interactively. Is there any setting I can change to prevent the need to recompile the FPGA VI each time the project changes location?
 

Solution

Since the bitfile contains information about the absolute project path, each time the project moves, the alphanumeric extension on the bitfile will change (red highlight). After the bitfile extension changes, the build specification signature will state that the bitfile is not found. Given that the bitfile is no longer properly associated with the project, attempting to run an FPGA VI interactively will cause the system to request to compile before running.


Recompilation can be avoided by following the steps outlined below:
  1. Navigate to the new location of your FPGA project and open the project.
  2. Under your FPGA Target's Build Specification, right-click on your compilation and select Properties.

  3. Navigate to Bitfile name found in the Information section of the window and paste the original name of the bitfile to this location. In addition, ensure that the directory shown in Destination Directory section actually contains the bitfile being referenced.

  4. Click OK to exit the properties menu.
  5. Right click on your compilation and select Check Signature.

    If the bitfile name was replaced correctly, the image below will be displayed.

Additional Information

If you are moving the project to a different computer, ensure that the versions of LabVIEW and the drivers match the versions from the development system. Otherwise, referencing the FPGA VI in the Open FPGA VI Reference will require recompiling the FPGA bitfile.

An additional step you can take to ensure the FPGA bitfile is correctly updated is to change the names to a simpler one on the original project.

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